


He Made the Stars, Too

by Aeshere



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:01:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7052872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeshere/pseuds/Aeshere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Feyre entering the Spring Court and learning to navigate the world of the Fae under the watch of Tamlin and Lucien is only one side of the story; Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court, would be disappointed if his was forgotten. Bonus points if you get the illusion in the title!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Beginning, There Was Light

**Author's Note:**

> A series of scenes from A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury from Rhysand's POV. All credit goes to the lovely Sarah J. Maas for her incredible world and characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a birthday gift for my sister, Lex, who is obsessed with this series and forced me to read it. Love ya, sis.

Flecks of red-brown smeared across a knuckle—a human knuckle, as a matter of fact. Navy deep and rich like the vacant sky before Starfall tucked in the crook where thumb met hand. Dashes of yellow, orange, Spring Court green swiped down the length of a finger.  I was dreaming in that way I used to recognize as a child when nonsense visited me at night and turned mountains into giants and ships to whales; this, too, felt equally implausible. In a book of Suriel wisdom, I once read that you could never dream of someone or something without having encountered that thing in life—even if you thought did, according to those faery seers, your mind was filling in this new thing with pieces already embedded in your consciousness. In spite of this, a single question turned over and over in my mind as sleep surrendered itself to coherence: _how can I dream of a human hand if I’ve never met a human before?_

That this hand was human was obvious—the skin was nicked and scarred, damaged in a way that Fae hands couldn’t have been. It flickered like a candle in my dream, this paint-dotted hand. Trying to glimpse more of it was like trying to decipher a reflection in rippling stream water—I could make out shapes, colors, obscure details but not much else. I half wondered if Amarantha had managed to find a way into my mind, teasing me with some trivial vision, a free, strange hand that was meaningless but that I had etched into the fibers of my brain—could this have been some new way to wage cruelty against me, to invade me the same way she did my body? The nights that she allowed me to sate my desire for escape on Fae wine, I found my eyes searching every hand at Under the Mountain for the one that found its way to my mind, growing desperate with the hours as they crept ever closer to the time the instruments were put away and the court ventured to their own quarters. Closer to the time that she would summon me with a raise of her head and a red, serpentine simper.

The only time that hand stayed away from my mind was when she took me to bed. Each night I shed my thoughts of it with my shirt and my pants, a ritual bit of peace for myself within the hellscape that was her room. By that time, I had given up fighting her or lying limp against her sheets—these things only piqued her interest more. By that point, I had succumbed to her entirely, putting every inch of my body at her service, losing myself in the web of fog wrought by the sounds and smells of sex. I never lusted for her, never thought about her body aside from where I needed to touch her to exhaust her, how I needed to fuck her to make her sleep. I did not pleasure in my time with her aside from when she was on her knees before me, when I could knot my hands ruthlessly in her hair and look through a crack in the ceiling of that room at the peak of the mountain to the night sky and imagine I was anywhere else with anyone else. I pulled at her scalp ruthlessly under the guise of passion so I could hurt her in the only safe way I knew how and even though her pain was inconsequential, fleeting compared to that which she inflicted upon those she made prisoners Under the Mountain, it was the only thing that allowed me  to finish.

These were my endless days and nights before I found to whom that hand belonged. From that void that was Under the Mountain, that was the hole in my chest, that was my will to do anything other than protect my people, that vision of a human hand planted somewhere in my chest and bloomed in the dark. From the deep, still, empty waters of hopelessness and rage and the all encompassing feeling of injustice, there was meaning, there was a glimmer of something that refracted in the dark. And that there was a refraction, that there was something in the nothing, meant that there was light.

  
  
  


 


	2. Lights in the Firmament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amaranda gives Rhysand permission to go to the Spring Court in anticipation of Calanmai.

“Rhysand.  _ Darling _ .” Amarantha stretched out the syllables of my name like she was wrapping her tongue around them, pausing in the doorway to her bedroom to take a sip of blood-red wine from the goblet in her hand. Like each night for nearly fifty years, she had taken to the bathing room to steep in the tub after retreating from a night’s entertainment in the throne room; I had long since learned to be in her bed by the time she donned a robe and wandered into her room. The white silk of the robe did little to conceal the peak of her breasts beneath the fabric where her wet hair had streaked trails of dampness; had she been another woman, any other woman, I might have stiffened at the sight. 

Playing my part, the stud, the whore, the mindless servant with a working appendage, I arranged my face into something that resembled interest and turned toward her. “Amarantha?” I said by way of a question, brow raising as she downed what was left in the goblet, rubbing the back of her hand across her lips before dropping it recklessly on a dressing table. The gold chalice clattered noisily to the floor, rolling back and forth against the cool marble before settling. 

Her eyes traced my face lazily, slowly, boredly, a sensuous smile creeping across her face as she toyed with the silken robe belt. “I’ve been thinking about your...request…” The words meandered from her mouth haphazardly as she moved to stand over me, body arched toward mine as she looked down at me in the bed. 

To find her in something that resembled a good mood was rare, especially in these past few months where her already volatile temper was even more precarious. It was times like this when my skills as a deceiver, the snake in Eden, best served me—when I knew Amarantha wished me pliable, when she might deign to reward me for my lack of resistance. When my hand went to her thigh—the heat of my palm immediately extinguished by her frigid, wet skin—it was as instinctive as breathing. “Have you?” I said the words in a low exhale that suggested that I was more interested in the area beneath her robe where my hand was now climbing rather than pandering to her vanity, her own desire. 

“Indeed,” she breathed, looking down at me, my hand, the tattoos on my chest. “Perhaps you might pay the Spring Court a little visit, hmm? A sign of  _ goodwill _ …” Amarantha’s smirk was liquid fire, lucid and taunting and ravenous for something I could never quite place. 

“Goodwill, you say?” This dance was not new to me, this back and forth, this push and pull, this twisting and turning of words. Sometimes they were foreplay to her, the banter of lovers—even if one lover secretly wanted to put an ash stake through the other lover’s perfect fucking face. Sometimes they were threats in thinly-veiled costumes, polite  _ suggestions  _ that were neither polite nor suggestions. Sometimes they were plans, plotting dressed up as flirtation. Tonight, I knew, was foreplay. So I moved my palm up under the silk of her nightgown and brought it between her legs.  _ Goodwill, indeed _ . 

She was all heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips at my touch. By now, I was well practiced—after fifty years, I had mastered her as if she were a craft, as if bringing pleasure crashing down around her was the sole purpose for my creation. Appropriate, as she certainly thought it was. She was already slick against my fingers as she brought herself down upon them, head tipped toward the ceiling. I wondered if she was aroused by her own scheming more than me, the half-naked High Lord of the Night Court in her bed. I felt warmth pool at my groin at her oscillations, my body betraying me. I had long since given up on the shame of being brought to attention by the creature I most hated in this realm; while my nights at her service did not sate the loneliness in my gut, I knew my body’s response to her was evolution attempting to remedy that crippling absence with what it could. 

“Soon,” Amarantha said with a throaty gasp, pulling the silk cord to open her robe and to expose her nakedness—hair like hot embers against skin the color of lightening, full breasts and rounded hips. As she pulled the sheet around my waist down to my calves, I stretched a palm to her waist, mind folding in on itself as she moved to take my length inside of her. 

I knew tonight would be quick, rough, and relatively painless. I knew she would use me, perverse in her satisfaction that she had elicited my orgasm, and fall asleep with a smug smirk on her face. In that way, this night was not that unlike most nights.

What I did not know was that when I closed my eyes, I would see my first glimpse of your light, golden-wheat hair reflected in a windowpane. It was only a vision, of course, but for a moment I was not in Amarantha’s bed or Under the Mountain and for a moment I was not someone’s whore at a ruthless court. Instead, for a fleeting heartbeat of a moment, I was a light shining to look at you, whoever you were, wherever you were. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How is this snapshot thing working for everyone? I'd love to tell you I could write really long, descriptive scenes but unfortunately, this is the best I can do. At this rate, I imagine I'll have maybe twelve or fifteen chapters. As always, thanks for reading!


	3. Dominion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhysand arrives at Fire Night.

I had always liked the sound of the drums that marked Calanmai, the celebration of Fire Night at Spring Court, though I never would have admitted it to the court’s High Lord—our respective treacheries against one another left no room for compliments—but I had never enjoyed the deep bass pulse more than this night. Because tonight was not an ordinary Calanmai, not the typical Fire Night where, in the past, I would have desired nothing more than a bottle of Fae wine and an open swath of countryside to which I could lead a lover. Tonight was different.

The visions had told me she would be here, perfectly human with the hands and hair my mind painted against my consciousness. Amarantha’s anxiety coupled with her belief in me as devout to her and her cause, exceedingly loyal, granted me twenty-four precious hours of reprieve from the depths of Under the Mountain. Before I left, she had presented me with the garb I wore as I strode down the hillside toward the cave—a deep purple-black tunic with silver buttons, a wispy pattern of thin curls embroidered in gold against the darkness like cosmos. She watched me dress from her bed, her sly, arrogant smirk pronounced as I watched her over my shoulder through the mirror, finishing the last buttons. I mildly hated myself for liking the livery.

Fire Night was already in full swing with hundreds of masked and unmasked faeries assembled in the dip of the earth leading to the cave. The good Fae wine had clearly made an early appearance—I noticed a good number of High Fae with the starry-eyed look that came from more than a few glasses of the delicacy. Had it been any other Fire Night, I might have selected one to make a long night’s work out of; there were plenty of lithe, chiffon-clad things to choose from, all long limbs and shy, if not tempting, smiles. And, to be fair, the masks did hold some level of fascination for me, something about the indelible mystery of the shrouded faces, identities limited to curves under fabric, irises and pupils, sets of lips. But tonight was different.

I noticed the crowd around him before I noticed Tamlin himself. From my position on the hillside, I could tell he had not allowed his body to drink in the magic that the Great Rite required from the stiffness in his shoulders, the tension of his arms folded across his chest as Lucien, the red-haired, spineless swine, stood next to him. They were surveying the crowd, no doubt the High Lord considering this year’s flock of females and his second in command doing much the same.

I remembered the last Great Rite I had attended some years before, how Tamlin had moved like a stormcloud across the valley, bare chested with swollen muscles, blood of the white stag he had sacrificed streaked down a shoulder. There was no denying he had been, was still powerful. That night, he had ceased to be Tamlin, the High Lord of the Spring Court—instead, he was the Hunter in search of the Maiden. Millennia of his forefather’s own Rites had ingrained themselves in his very bones, programmed Tamlin to absorb the magic that transformed him into little more than a rutting animal dictated by instinct. The last Great Rite, the last time I saw Tamlin before this day, I watched him move with the fluidity of a glacier to a pretty High Fae girl, his mere presence commanding her to the cave where he coupled with her so loudly, so roughly that the earth shuddered below my feet, leaving the rest of us males to his unwanted choices in which we gratefully partook.

But tonight was different. Tonight I was tracking a smell that stood out against the perfume of the rest of the faeries at Fire Night. The scent was raw and sharp like woodsmoke and wet earth and stood in stark contrast to the familiarity of other aromas characteristic of Faekind; this was the fragrance of a human. The drums pounded in my ear in time with my own heartbeat as I surveyed the hollow, picking through faerie faces, ignoring masks. She had to be here. The visions put her here. A pretty, raven-haired thing cozied to my side and chattered about the wine and Tamlin and how _she_ didn’t need a cave to show a High Lord a good time as I scanned the crowd, careful to smirk and nod at the right times to keep her from leaving; I knew standing aside a partner made me less conspicuous, especially if I caught the attention of Tamlin or, worse, Lucien.

When I saw her, my wings twitched under my tunic. My body felt like pure starlight, hot and energized and I wanted nothing more than to cascade down that hillside and into the hollow and take her as mine—the magic of the Rite had yet to begin and certainly was not mine but, Cauldron boil me, I felt it to my core. Even the strands of my hair, the tips of my fingers were aflame. It was if the iron in my blood responded to her magnetism, drawing my body forward without warning. _It’s her, it’s her, it’s her_. Even though she was standing in plain sight, even though I could have feasted my eyes on every inch of her without restraint, my eyes were narrowed to her hands as something more ancient than desire propelled me toward her—I was a bondsman to the call.

I already knew I would break the minds of the men who stood near her. I felt how they splayed her before each other in their thoughts, how they sought to ruin her for their own pleasure, and I knew I would ruin them for my own as soon as I could get her away from them. I was close to their throng before I meant to be, compelled by the impossibility that I was truly looking at her at last. I saw her fingers, her palm, her knuckles, the delicate bend of her wrist, the strands of hair tucked behind her round ears. I traced my eyes against the plane of her forehead, down the slope of her cheekbone, against the curve of the bridge of her nose. And, without meaning to, I drew closer, closer, closer, until she was there before me, so close I could touch her, grab her, damn every soul in our world and seize her for my own.

The hands of the vermin who had been touching her ceased at my words, the words that drew her eyes to me for the first time, the words that I had not meant to speak but that formed in my mouth as if they had been scripted by the Mother Herself.

 

_There you are. I’ve been looking for you._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those of you who have left kudos--I truly appreciate it! xxx


	4. Savior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhysand and Feyre meet for the first time.

When I caught her arm, I felt the universe shift into place. I had not prepared for this moment, not rehearsed what I was going to say. It occurred to me at once that maybe I had willed her from Tamlin’s palace with my yearning, that I had suggested her come to the grove near the cave so that I might find her, so that I could meet the genesis for my visions. When she was finally before me, the dusk sun painting a glow across her face, I realized how utterly fragile she was, how capable she was of being snapped in two, both her mind and body. These were my thoughts as my hands touched her and I felt five hundred years of momentum unfurl, sending my palms to her arm, my chest blazing painfully, and thus I was brought to my reckoning. 

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

The words had pressed past my lips as if they had been hardwired in my very being, their resonance remarkably natural, remarkably  _ me  _ in a moment where I felt so incapacitated. I did not intend to test out her thoughts yet without trying I found myself buried in the folds of her mind like fingers slipped into a glove, the fit natural and easy. My eyes were on her hands, her eyes on the three who had deigned to put hands on her, as her mind echoed into my own as if it traveled along a path from her to me, a bond between us. 

_ Deep. Sensual. Stranger. _

Her mind did not know where to put me and as she was not rotating around me as I felt I was around her in that moment, I quickly realized that this bond reverberated more strongly with me, perhaps entirely with me. Even though I shouldn’t have, even though it was utterly inappropriate, I smoothed my thumb ever-so-slightly against the skin on her forearm like a bow over violin strings, my body singing a chorus of goosebumps up my arm to my shoulder. I was momentarily distracted from my plotting of how to best murder these attackers, the damned High Fae filth, focused instead on how I could get her away, get her to myself. There was a fleeting sensation of shame to my selfishness, but then I wondered if the Earth ever felt selfish for rotating around the Sun? 

“Thank you for finding her for me,” I managed at last, arm around her shoulder, body contracting toward her as something primal fought against my reason. I had told myself that I would see her once, find out if what my visions had suggested was so; this did not include putting my mouth to hers, I had to remind myself as I looked down at her. 

_ Savior _ . 

As her mind wrapped around the word, attributed it to me, I would have damned myself to an eternity of masochistic agony for it to be true. I would have buried stakes of ash into my own chest, murdered in cold blood my friends, razed every comfort in my life to have been her savior, this nameless girl from my visions. Even though I told myself that minds exaggerate, function on emotion, and that this girl, this woman was merely thankful for my presence—any presence, really—that ridded her of the men prodding at her, I imagined the ways I could lay my life down for her alongside the overwhelming desire to put my hands, my mouth, on every inch of her. 

I felt waves of gratitude ripple through her and then she was looking at my face and the very matter that made up my soul itself was cracking into, falling into pieces and building itself anew with her eyes at the center, her face as the foundation. I had sustained what felt like neverending years of torture, fifty cycles of Earth around Sun where I rarely went a day without wishing for death, and I would have dedicated countless millennia more to that pain and suffering if it had ensured this moment. 

_ Most beautiful man _ .

I had been too much a self absorbed fool to consider the fact that she might not have cared to do more than offer my a cursory glance, a curt exchange of thanks. I had caught enough glances from women in five hundred years to know that it was rare that my continuance failed to find appeal with the fairer sex; if anything, I knew it would likely be my words, my actions, my damn  _ personality _ that would push this beautiful, fragile human away from me. That she found me beautiful was less a compliment than a relief. 

_ Sensual ease. Grace. High Fae. Violet eyes. Thank you? That’s not enough...maybe I shouldn’t be here, look at how he’s looking at me, look at that smile _ . 

Her hesitation, her reluctance to speak send a half smile to my lips, both at how thoroughly adorable she looked as she attempted to figure me out and the irony of her uncertainty compared to my unyielding, secret dedication to her, this nameless girl in front of me. How did Adam breathe when he learned that Eve was made for him, made  _ from _ him? I was a star in supernova at the foot of her galaxy, ready to burn to dust for her, whoever, whatever she was. 

But she couldn’t know that. I couldn’t say that.  _ Cauldron, Rhys _ , my mind shouted at me. Sense flooded back to my oxygen-starved brain as I managed a deep inhale, teasing grin back on my face as I remembered who I was and where we were. If Cassian could see me now, I’d pray for the Mother to strike me on the spot. 

“What’s a mortal like you doing here on Fire Night?” Centuries of mocking, teasing, toying ebbed back into me as I took the reigns back from my lovesick, disgusting daydream and looked down at her. Calling her beautiful was meaningless, billions of our kind were beautiful, had called others beautiful in the history of the world—she could not be something that anyone else was, had ever been. She was tan, her skin darker than I remembered from that first vision of her scarred hand, no doubt thanks to the days in the sunlight of Spring Court at Tamlin’s side. Her hair was like liquid gold poured with bronze, gleaming in the light of the setting sun. The primitive part of me directed my attention to her body, the delicate curve of her neck as it swooped to meet her shoulder, the collarbones that stood from her chest, the perfect roundness of her breasts, the feminine arch of her back. I wanted to splay her body against the ground then and there, I wanted to memorize each freckle, each scar, each fine hair on her arm. I wanted to bury myself inside her until I brought us both to ecstasy.

_ Voice like a lover _ , her mind whispered, and I watched with feral need a quake that fleetingly consumed her body. I stood before her in rapture, all encompassing euphoria at the notion of her mind, her body wanting me on even the most subconscious, insubstantial level. But she stepped away. “My friends brought me.” 

_ Liar _ , my mind’s eye shouted, lacking the amusement I felt as her thoughts were busy with other things than the lie. 

_ He looks so human...lots of black clothing, suits his hair, really...and that body...magnificent...like he’s been molded from darkness, from night… _

I wanted to claim her as my own, I wanted to rock her against me until we both saw infinity, I wanted to tell Tamlin, the fucking prick, that he was not entitled to something this exquisite. But I knew better than to do these things. So I played along. “And who are you friends?” I said with a knowing, lustful smile. 

_ Sizing up his prey… _ her mind whirled. She was far more correct than she knew. 

“Their names?” I countered, moving to fill the space from her retreat with my own advance. I felt the dangerous reflex to reach out to her, to touch her, to put my hands on her, so I put them in my pockets, fingers flexed and forearms tensing with restraint. I had forgotten what genuine desire felt like in the fifty years since I had been taken to Under the Mountain; I had forgotten how easy it was to flirt, banter with someone you truly wanted to make yours. I felt like a panther moving through a silent jungle, little more than a pair of eyes on a prize; quickly, I sensed this was not the tactic for talking to a human girl. 

“You’re welcome,” I offered at last, flippantly, arrogantly. “For saving you.” 

My amusement swelled as her mind bristled at my cockines; in an instant, I recognized that I could make good work out of ruffling her feathers. Her mind was occupied with thoughts of running from me, of searching out the lost golden child of the Autumn Court or someone named Alis. I took a step into her path, moving to walk a lazy, measured circle around her as my eyes drank her in, cascading up and down the planes of her body, over the curves of her form in tantalizing arcs that made me swell ever so slightly beneath my tunic belt. 

I don’t remember what I said—even as I said it, I doubt I was measured enough to manage anything remarkable or worthwhile. All I knew is that the longer I talked, the more I held her in place with my eyes and will, the better my chances were of keeping her close to me. I didn’t allow myself to imagine more than a day with her—no, Amarantha’s allowance in letting me out of my prison was something fresh on my mind—but damn it, if I wouldn’t coax every second of attention I would get from her. 

She gave herself away with the bit about refreshments, claiming these nameless Fae friends of hers were off fetching them for her. We both knew I saw through the lie and here I capitalized on my chance of getting her somewhere on her own. 

“May I escort you somewhere in the meantime?” I was reaching for her before I realized I had done so, a motion of man desperate for contact with a beautiful girl, with the girl of, literally, his dreams. I wanted to make her mine in the nearby grass, I wanted to worship her in a forgotten path of shade at the fringe of the grove. I wanted to tell her that we were bond to one another in an impossible, inexplicable way. 

But I could do none of that. Because doing that meant telling her. Doing that meant putting her at risk in the same senseless way Tamlin was now, allowing her to be at the Great Rite. Because doing that meant putting a target on her and from Under the Mountain, Amarantha could find out and could have a greater hold still. So instead I memorized her body, planned how I would put my mouth on her neck, on her breasts, between her legs if the time ever came, planned how I would make her body hum underneath mine until neither of us could stand it and stars exploded in our eyes, down our spines. 

Her thoughts acknowledged me for the puzzle I was, and I was sardonically grateful for my own performance and restraint. She turned me over in her mind, oscillating between fear and loathing and maybe something that resembled covetish want. I tore my mind from hers, tore my eyes from hers as she told me to enjoy the Rite and walked away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried something a bit longer this time! This section is based on their meeting in ACOTAR and quotes Chapter 20 and 21 in a few places, mainly where Feyre's thoughts are relevant. I'd love to know what you all think! As always, thanks for the kudos! xx Aesh


	5. Famine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhysand, alone with his thoughts, before the Great Rite.

Even as I watched her walk away, there was a thick, raging emptiness in my gut. It wasn’t just that we were apart, I had prepared myself for the withdraw I might feel when we were inevitably separated, but that she was here, alone, at the Rite. She was in the same stretch of grove that Talmin would be far too soon, drunk on ancient magic, his mind desire-addled. She was strong, yes, but only strong for a human—even a weak Fae could tear her to ribbons without much effort—and certainly not strong enough for the kind of enchantment that would turn that fool of a High Lord into a wanton fiend. 

For the first time in my five hundred years on earth, I was relieved to see Lucien, perhaps even thrilled when I noted the look on his face: livid, bordering on irate. His face had immediately gone white but now, his indignation swelling, it was nearly as scarlet as his ridiculous hair as he chastised the human girl; for a moment, my trepidation morphed to wry amusement at the defiant jut of her chin at his umbrage.  _ The Cauldron certainly couldn’t have chosen better _ , my mind acknowledged. I felt my heart pound a syncopated beat at the thought. 

I didn’t bother to seek ingress into Lucien’s mind when his raised voice told me all I needed to know. While I didn’t necessarily care for him shouting at the girl, didn’t care for how his hand shot out to grab her elbow, and pull her toward him, my irritation was tempered by unwitting gratitude for his sudden role as interloper. While the son of the Autumn Court dynasty was eons from someone I might consider an ally, much less a friend, his presence would ensure the girl’s absence from Fire Night and thus from becoming a participant in the Rite and for that I was appreciative. Even still, my blood burned in my veins as I heard him bark “Idiot!” at her, hissing another acrimonious insult at her before hauling her over his shoulder like a rag doll. 

I watched the girl attempt a somewhat valiant escape from Lucien’s grasp, wriggling against his hold as she spewed nonsensical arguments of protest as he adjusted his grip and took off in a canter from the grove, and I admired her. Feisty. The Mother knew a girl with any less pluck wouldn’t have a chance in the Fae realm—much less begin to tolerate the likes of me—and while the logical, reasoned part of me knew her raptus and retreat was essential, I felt her absence as squarely as a kick to the jaw. Because even as just watching her at Fire Night would have been enough, merely drinking in her scent across the festivities would have sated me for a few decade, the risk of the High Lord of the Spring Court unleashing the terrible magic of the Hunter upon her was too great—if not for her own good, then for the acumen of my jealousy. 

The hours ticked by much as they did every Calanmai, the dregs of day succumbing to night as still more Faekind gathered in the grove decked in finery reserved for nights such as these. While I had encountered the fashion of the Spring Court frequently in my five hundred years, the forty-nine years spent Under the Mountain had begun to dull my memory of it—I had forgotten the spectacle of the wide, billowing skirts, the fitted bodices, the thick fabrics. The aesthetic was decidedly formal, classic. In its convention, it reminded me of the human fashion displayed in the portraits that illustrated the books of my library at Night Court, though the lush, warm, ornate palate was not nearly as provincial as humankind’s. On the surface, I saw the appeal; a mind could roam wild with thoughts of what was under a skirt, beneath those long sleeves. Indeed, it was the proprietous fashion of a buttoned up court, but all of the structure made me yearn for the cirrus-cloud wispiness reminiscent of the attire of my own court—the feathery, flyway muslin ensembles the women wore in the day, the scant, form-fitting evening regalia with their brazen, prurient necklines. I considered what Amren, in her typical style of dress, might have looked like alongside the High Fae of the Spring Court and a chuckle vibrated from my chest into my throat—vulgar, no doubt. I imagined how the male eyes would follow her in failed attempts at surrupticity over the shoulders of their more modestly dressed female companions who would of course find  _ that _ sort of clothing an affront to their delicate sensibilities. In spite of myself, I laughed again. 

As if a reflex, my mind summoned an image of the human girl dressed in Night Court attire, how her body might have looked as it was hugged by fabric black as night, tight as second skin. How the ungarmented parts might seem, unencumbered by undergowns or laced bodices. What it could perhaps feel like to peel the custom of my lands from her body, to drop the airy fabric to the floor, to cast my own aside and put my hands…

The silence as the staccato of the drum beats ceased was somehow deafening. My eyes went to the horizon where the sun had finally dipped below the plain, a warm breeze like the breath of the Mother herself moving through the grass, the trees, the grove as if to hush the crowd as the smell and ripple of magic thrummed from the mass. There was no doubt now was the time, no doubt that the Great Rite was about to begin. As I resigned my attention to the face of the cave, then the face of the High Lord of the Spring Court, I offered a secret, silent prayer to the Cauldron for the Hunter in spite of my hatred for him, in spite of my famine in the absence of the human girl. And then I was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter this time because *sob* no Feyre. I was originally thinking this was going to be 12-15 chapters but now I have no idea how I could cover everything I want to cover in that few--I'm thinking it's likely going to be far more than that, especially to get through the end of ACOMAF. If you have any favorite scenes you want to see, any ideas for moments that aren't in the books but would be worth exploring for this project, please let me know! Thank you for the support, kudos, and comments thus far--they mean the world! xx Aesh


	6. Baptism

In my dreams that night, I baptized her body with mine. Or maybe it was the other way around. In my dreams her skin was as delicate and pale as cloud wisps in the light of the full moon, familiar and new at the same time. Her lips were dawn and dusk at once, opening and closing against mine as time was rendered meaningless, beginning and end now the same. In my dreams she never spoke, never made a sound, but coiled her body to mine in a way so effortless, so naturally that I knew that this version of her could only exist in my mind--I knew, even as I slept, that none of this was real. 

So I savored it. 

I played her body like a game of chess and that I'd had the same amount of years perfecting my skill at it as I had moving marble aristocrats across a board. My mind fabricated an image of her nakedness that had been obscured by the ornate vestments of the Spring Court when we had met; God-like in my dreams, I carved her body out of nothing, hands bringing her to life as the likeness of me in my sleep breathed her into existence. My mouth outlined her neck, my palm sculpted her calf, my thumb sprung up veins at her wrist. In this dream world, she was entirely mine. In this dream world, I could fill her to the brim--fill her body with mine, fill in the gaps that I hadn't been able to cement into my memory as she stood before me in life. 

I woke up in Amarantha's bed wanting like I had never wanted before. To sate my desire with her body, to know her name, to protect her, to keep her away, to bring my mouth down on hers, to have never met her in the first place. I was hot and cold and full and empty and a complete and utter fool for failing to control myself, for mentally bending to this need for a weak, mortal girl who was equal parts apparition and real. I would have lit myself on fire to be near her. I would have lied and stolen and killed and fucked and done whatever was asked to me to hear her voice, to touch the hem of her sleeve, to have her look at me even if I could not have looked back. And this is how I knew that I could very well end up destroying the world for her. This is how I knew that this human girl would one day be my Mate. 

I had been told that our bodies know before we do when we've met our match, the one the Cauldron had chosen for us based on the whimsy of nature, been told that a avalanche is nothing compared to a male struck reborn by the biological inevitability set into motion when a male first puts eyes upon his Mate. I had not been told that it would feel like the earth’s axis had shifted, that it would consume every moment of my day from that point forward. I had not been told that the suffering, the obsession would be pleasurable because it made the senseless things in my life make sense, made them worth it. 

One day, my inner monologue was concerned with protecting Velaris, sating Amarantha, surviving Under the Mountain. The next day, it was all background, all necessary evils to put up with that were justified by notion that doing these things might one day mean I could speak with her again, look at her face, listen to her voice. I went on living day after day from Calanmai forward because the possibility of living again, truly living, seemed like a reality that was no longer too far away; suddenly, there bloomed a hint at a promise of tomorrow free from the confines of Amarantha’s spell. That I could maybe one day take a deep breath and inhale cold mountain air, feel the waft of wind under the tension of my wings, melt snowflakes with the heat of my skin in the artist market. I could drink Fae wine not to forget but to celebrate, dress in finery for the festivals and feasts of my court and not the parade of nightmares in this cavern, dedicate my life to something I chose rather than the obligation that came along with ensuring that Amarantha would not kill me on a whim. 

“Rhysand.” Even though she laid next to me, Amarantha’s voice sounded like it was from far away, a murmur from underwater. As I rolled over to look at her, to watch her eyes fall to the tattoos on my chest with the same feline, predatory look in her eye, I knew I would live to see that girl again, that very human girl of my dreams. My mate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no update but I'm ready to get back into this thing! If you're still with me after this ridiculous hiatus, thank you!


	7. A Different Gospel (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of two parts that deals with Rhys discovering Feyre in the manor at the Spring Court.

By the time Amarantha sent me to the Spring Court after Summer Solstice, I was so used to forging daydreams of the human girl that they were something of background noise in my consciousness. Most of the time, the familiar pang I felt for her was as common as doing up buttons on a tunic or opening and closing doors; it had become regular and mundane, I had made myself bored with my constant wanting.

When I made me way up the cobblestone promenade to the affront to classical architecture that Tamlin called home, I was a cat looking to play with my food, the persona Amarantha bade me undertake. I watched High Fae and other faerie-kind alike go quiet and part a way for me, eyes following my wake as I strode from exterior to interior as if I had not spilled the blood of Tamlin's brothers the last time I had been in this place, had not left a manor full of bodies behind as retribution of what Tamlin had done to my mother and sister. As if Tamlin had never been a friend to me. Walking through the foyer, I remembered how it had felt to capture Tamlin's brothers' minds with mine, how it had felt as if I was cupping blown-glass baubles in my palm; breaking them was merely balling my fingers into a fist. Even as I passed it without a second glance, my mind made its way up the grand staircase and down the hall to where Tamlin's father and mother had been felled by my father, how the scent of the former High Lord's magic whirled past me to Tamlin, how he radiated the metallic odor as he avenged his family. I chose to flee rather than kill him because I had to prove to him, to myself that I was in control, that  _ my  _ will was a strong as my magic, that I was not dictated by the flaws of emotion like Tamlin was, the beast with the claws. My weapon was my measured mind, the one that melted the consciousness of Tamlin's pathetic brothers without lifting a finger. As an Illyrian, I was a warrior, but as a High Lord I was the best of it all, the strongest thing of my kind that our realm had ever known.

And I was bound to remind Tamlin that he need not forget that.

I sought Lucien’s mind before I entered the room, watched through his eyes as they darted around the room, taking in Tamlin’s panicked expression. So they knew I was here. I wondered if I reeked of the dirty magic of Under the Mountain, if the scent would ever come clean from my skin. By the time I strode through the doors to where they had been dining, I had assumed the character I had created for myself in the Court of Nightmares, the kind of arrogant, insufferable, dangerous High Lord that rallied people like the Spring Court to despise me. I saw the tension between Tamlin’s shoulders, his pupils narrowed to black specks as if he’d been staring into the sun, and I knew there was something I was missing. Tamlin’s claws were out, canines prominent and long and gleaming in the afternoon light that slanted through the windows; Tamlin was far too perturbed for someone merely agitated. He knew this level of irritation would please me, sate my put-on desire to get under his skin--from the years we had known each other, even those very long ago, Tamlin had always been careful to be measured around me, to not let me see him sweat. 

And yet here he was, hackles raised with Lucien white knuckling a sword as I finally walked into the dining room. Tamlin’s claws were sheathed by then, slouching in his chair and fidgeting in feigned boredom with his hands. I strolled casually through the doorway, hands deep in my tunic pockets as I pretended the memories of what I had done in this place where falling over me like waves. I stopped in front of Tamlin, pausing to brush a speck of dirt from the velvet of my coat. 

“High Lord,” I said after a long pause, lifting my head to the seated prince of the Spring Court. I left the slight of not performing the customary bow hanging in the air after my words, knowing that that would send Lucien into a fit more than Tamlin. 

“What do you want, Rhysand?”

The way he spoke tickled me; he was far more irritable than I noticed upon first glance. There was violence in his voice along with the usual contempt, a threat that simmered just beneath the surface of veiled nonchalance. I couldn’t help the smile that came across my face as I put my hand to my heart as if he had struck me. 

“Rhysand? Come now, Tamlin. I don’t see you for forty-nine years…” I was ignoring myself by the time I started the normal pitch about how only  _ prisoners and enemies _ called me Rhysand. A lie, of course; Amarantha prefered Rhysand as well, and certainly  _ I  _ was the prisoner in that situation. I grinned as Tamlin shot me a look that promised brutality if I kept speaking, clearly unaware that a fight with him would be a welcome gift considering what I endured on a daily basis Under the Mountain. 

“A fox mask. Appropriate for you, Lucien.” 

It was far too easy to pick on the ginger son of the Autumn Court, the defector of his own people. “Go to Hell, Rhys,” he snapped by way of an answer. 

“Always a pleasure dealing with the rabble,” I answered, giving Tamlin a serene smile. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting…”

I knew I had been interrupting something, even if it wasn’t consciously. But years of refining my ability to jump from mind to mind in a crowded room told me that there was something strange going on in the gaudy dining room we were standing in. Tamlin was far too desperate with anger to manage to hide his contempt, a pastime he typically revelled in as we each edged to provoke the other. Lucien, always a bit less heavy handed than his fearless leader, was rife with a kind of trepidation that almost distracted me; normally more free with his emotions, I could tell by his forced disposition that the calm was an affectation for the benefit of his High Lord. I prattled on to Tamlin, testing with my mind the minds of the other faeries that I had passed on the way into the manor, the ones that had grown silent as I approached. Nothing more than the typical kind of gossip, anxiety, and duty than what I would expect from those closest with Tamlin. It wasn’t difficult to hop from mind to mind when the conversation I was having with Tamlin and Lucien was the same sort we’d had each time we’d encountered one another since before I went Under the Mountain, after Tamlin and I had murdered each other’s families. We were actors reading the same lines, putting on the kind of contempt that the Montagues reserved for the Capulets in the plays of old. 

And then Lucien pulled his sword on me. 

My desire to tear him limb from limb was acute, sudden, like a hole in a dyke that had succumbed to too much pressure and ripped the whole structure apart. I was in Lucien’s face before I had decided to move, motivated by decades of hate and torture and the sadistic inclination to inflict pain upon another living thing. I resisted the urge to invade his mind in that moment because I knew if I heard an ill thought about me, I’d crack his mind into pieces again and again and again until he was putty in my hands. So I stepped away, took in a deep breath, and then…

...and then I saw it. The  _ three _ fine place settings on the table. 

I picked up the goblet nearest where I stood in sucked in a breath and was immediately overwhelmed by the scent of wet earth and rain and bread. The scent of a human. And in my head I saw her, the girl from my dreams, the girl from Calanmai, and it suddenly all made sense. Lucien’s irritation, Tamlin’s barely concealed rage, the concern of the other faeries as I had walked up the promenade. She had been at this table, eating his food and sleeping in his manor and wearing the finery he’d given her. And she was in this room right now. The part of me dictated by nature and ego wanted to raze the place, wanted to pin Lucien and Tamlin to pyres and watch them burn as I took the girl for my own. I wanted to put her in my arms and fly her out of here, away from him, away from the threat of Amarantha. I wanted to take her on that table with the dishes as Tamlin watched as the magic that made her  _ my _ Mate turned her into a fiend who would cry out my name. 

I retreated from the more unadulterated parts of my mind and focused back on the present, finally smelled this human guest enough to sort out she was behind the red-headed fool who had dared to glamour me. Tamlin was on his feet, swelling with rage as was he was prone to doing, as Lucien dropped his glamour. And then she was in front of me, all golden hair and tanned skin and breathless and afraid of me and I was consumed by the impulse to tell her that she need not fear me, that she was meant for me, that whatever reason there was for her to have left the mortal world to come here, it was just a step toward us finally meeting. 

But I could not do those things. I could not put her in harm's way in the manner that stupid,  _ greedy _ Tamlin was in this moment. I fired off the usual threats to Lucien, drawing his mother into the violent suggestions because I knew that for as strong, unflappable as Lucien seemed, there was torment and anguish behind his little fox mask. He reminded me of one of Tamlin’s brothers, the same sort of soft quietness, the same sort of petulence, a kind of fragility that made him far more considerate than his High Lord. I watched this weak, lost son of the Autumn Court tremble before me and I drove the nail in deeper, mentioned the  _ mortal trash _ he’d fallen in love with, recognizing the irony as it took every fiber of myself to keep my eyes off of the mortal who stood across from me. And instead of leaving when Tamlin bade me, I buried myself deep in the folds of the mortal girl’s mind, right on the brink of breaking her as Tamlin and Lucien looked on helplessly. 

I traveled down paths of her mind that led to memories of family, instincts for survival, daydreams of the ecstasy that would ensue once Tamlin claimed her body with his own. This was no betrothed of Lucien’s--I immediately saw the lie for what it had been, a way of concealing the girl from me, a way of making her seem less significant than she actually was. I felt my stomach bend and stretch, heat fall down to the pit of my stomach as I explored her thoughts about my greatest enemy, the double treachery of the girl who was my Mate thinking about  _ Tamlin _ of all people in this way and my body that ached to have her think of me in his place.

 

And suddenly there was a third thought that floated to my mind, one that struck me like lightening.  _ She was the one who could break Amarantha’s spell _ . 


	8. A Different Gospel (Part II)

So this is how it was. This girl was not meant for me, not the one that rule my court beside me. This girl was the cursebreaker, the one who would free Tamlin and Lucien and the rest of the masked High Fae from their masked bondage and release the hord of other faerie kind from Under the Mountain. This was the girl who was going to do what I could not: kill Amarantha. Although I should have felt glee at this, been positively dizzy with pleasure at the idea of finally vacating my post as the dictator's whore, my happiness was flat and hollow. While this girl was part of my destiny, she was not _my_ destiny, most certainly not my Mate; I couldn't tell if that knowledge calmed or disappointed me.

And because it was all shot to hell, because this was just some girl and not _my_ girl, I reached out and touched her just like I had at Calanmai, just like I had in my dreams. From the moment I brought the pad of my finger to the warm skin of her neck, a ripple of comfort flowed through and surrounded me. For the first time in fifty years, I felt safe, secure, understood even though I knew I most certainly was not, absolutely not accepted as Tamlin and Lucien and this girl looked at my with disdain and hatred and fear. I had to admit, for a girl who must not be my Mate, I remained fascinated with her in a way that was abnormal. The smell of warm earth and the scent of hearty bread and the feel of her skin against mine like sun-warmed rocks was a combination that rendered me stunned with its beauty--all of this so striking and it failed to account for her face, her hair, the thin-lipped expression of displeasure in spite of the heat of her cheeks, in spite of the fact that, with my mind buried deep in hers, I knew she found me attractive, knew that deep down she wondered what it might be like to touch me.

Even if she wasn't my Mate, the fantasy of putting my hands on every inch of her was as powerful as ever.

“I’d forgotten that human minds are as easy to shatter as eggshells,” I said slowly, voice low as I ran a finger across the base of her throat. I felt her shudder under my touch and I wondered if it was for fear or some deep-seeded, unadmitable enjoyment; even though my mind consumed hers entirely, I did not seek out an answer as the girl looked up at me, eyes burning. “Look at how delightful she is—look how she’s trying not to cry out in terror. It would be quick, I promise," I went on, dragging my finger to the rise of skin at her collarbone, eyeing her once more with faint curiosity as goosebumps pricked up a trail behind my finger.   
  
Although I recounted the thoughts of the girl's daydreams about Tamlin, the ways in which he took her body for his own and how she imagined nothing but heat and shredded clothes, I ignored the sound of my own voice, ignored the content of what I was repeating. Because if I had paid attention, if I'd allowed myself to witness those daydreams in earnest, in detail, if I allowed myself to think about the High _fucking_ Lord of the Spring Court so much as looking at her the wrong way, I would have cracked wide open every mind in a fifteen mile radius. I had not felt my magic this attuned to my emotions since before I was cast to retreat to Under the Mountain and I felt almost dizzy with it as it flowed through my veins in time with the rhythmic pump of my heart. 

“Let. Her. Go.”

Tamlin's feral rage amused me; clearly he was unaware that in this moment I could have struck him dead without lifting a finger. I thought about it for a moment, imagined what would happen if I made of him what I had of his brothers. It was  _too_ appealing. But then I was looking back at the girl, the fear in her eyes, and realizing that she was our chance, his chance,  _my_ chance to be free of Amarantha's magic and how it had perverted Pyrthian. I had never considered myself selfless, nonetheless charitable nor understanding, but as I looked between Tamlin and the girl, I acknowledged the inevitability of the situation: this girl would not be mine, not now, not ever if Tamlin had his way. It was in that moment that I recognized a familiar feeling in the girl's mind, one that I myself was all too familiar with--the girl was impossibly, ridiculously  _stubborn_. Even though I could easy invade the walls of her mind, I felt a push back against mine; she certainly had  _some_ sort of ability that wasn't entirely human, this supposedly mortal girl.

She fell to the ground when my mind surrendered hers back to her and I resisted the urge to look at her head on, relying on a covert glance out of my periphery; I knew if I looked at her, saw her there in shock or sobbing or falling apart, I might hesitate, show weakness, give Tamlin a reason to think that neither my nor Amarantha's threats were serious. And I needed that most of all, needed him to know that keeping his mortal girl at his court would be her death sentence. Tamlin needed to think that I was the sort of demon who would continue to post the heads of my enemies on his fountain, winnow to his court without notice to inflict terror upon his people, clench the girl's mind with my own until she ceased to exist.

“Amarantha will enjoy breaking her,” I drawled, careful to keep my voice bored as I smirked at Tamlin. “Almost as much as she’ll enjoy watching you as she shatters her bit by bit.”  
  


I felt a wave of satisfaction wash over me as Tamlin froze, arms slack, face fallen, looking every bit of the version of him I knew as a boy before he slaughtered my mother and sister, before he had become High Lord of the Spring Court. He looked perfectly crestfallen, completely defeated as he finally managed a single word.

" _Please_."

I met his eye, aware that I had turned Tamlin's mind just as I wanted it with my words alone. “Please what?” I said in a near whisper—gently, coaxingly—after a long pause, taking a step closer to him as I tipped my head down as if I was listening very carefully but I knew what was to come. And I was right. Tamlin, the oh-so-powerful, oh-so-arrogant murdering wretch of a High Lord pled with me, _Amarantha's whore_ , for the life of his mortal plaything, the girl from my visions.

So I made him beg, forced him into a low bow and then lower still, resisting the urge to settle my boot with all my might squarely onto the back of his neck. For good measure, I made the fox-faced one follow suit as well; ever the loyal second, Lucien's forehead was against the marble floor in less than a heartbeat. I enjoyed the picture far too much.

“You’re far too desperate, Tamlin. It’s off-putting. Becoming High Lord made you so boring.”  
  
He was on his feet as fast as I predicted, a blur of ridiculous blond hair and claws inches from my face, fangs bared as he sized me up. I pondered about what it would be like to fight him here, to test my wings, my strength against another male. I felt my resolve slipping at the thought of tearing him to shreds and I was fortunate that my mind knew better than my ego that the task at hand was far more important than some sort of petty fight to the death over pride. 

“None of that,”  I clicked my tongue at him, lifting a palm to place squarely on his chest as I pushed him aside, the violence in me somewhat sated by the small shove. “Not with a lady present.” 

And then I looked at her.

“What’s your name, love?”

As she answered me and identified herself as Clare Beddor, I prayed to the Cauldron that she was lying to me, that she was clever enough to realize that Amarantha finding her would be her downfall. I held out hope that Tamlin would have instructed her as to the danger she was in, being a mortal girl in our realm; I didn't trust that he'd have cued her in to how the curse worked, what her place in it might be. When I looked at her, I felt a tug in my chest like the ones I felt when she came to me in my dreams, when I touched her during Fire Night, when she pushed back with her mind against mine.

Perhaps she was Tamlin's and not mine, perhaps she would share his bed and all of the fantasies her mind had under force divulged to mine would come to fruition. But perhaps this strange, mortal girl was meant for something else entirely.  


	9. See, Speak, Hear No Evil

Amarantha’s eyes were like liquid obsidian when she saw me the evening after I left the Spring Court, perfectly reflecting the candlelight cast from the candelabras at the long banquet table. I put myself in my normal seat to her left, adjusting my tunic as I felt her gaze on me from her place at the head of the table.

“How is our noble beast of the Spring?” She asked coolly, taking a sip of wine and surveying the cavernous expanse that served as our hall, where we gathered for the meals, drinks, and dancing the so-called “High Lady of Pyrthian” mandated. Her eyes finally find their way to me, lips curling into a snarl as her nostrils flared. “You smell of him.” 

Magic seeped from her pores and crawled across the table, through the air toward me as in stomach-acid green tendrils of smoke that slipped under the sleeves of my tunic, in the gap between the throat of the fabric and my skin, and wafted through my hair. Bile rose in the back of my throat as the stench of her magic permeated my skin in turn, filling my nose and my throat and my lungs with the sickly-sweet odor. 

“Much better,” She cooed, though the sound wasn’t particularly soft or comforting; it matched the hint of edge that glimpsed out of her otherwise placid face. She brought her hand to my jaw, fingers gripping my chin and nails sinking into the skin as she planted a vulgar kiss to my lips. 

In my mind, I skinned her alive. In my mind I dug my talons so deep in her sides that I hoisted her into the air by her ribcage and gutted her alive, letting her watch as her organs fell down upon her indentured court. In my mind I roasted her so she could smell her own flesh cook, put ash stakes through her most sensitive parts, binded her to a column to let the court torture her as they pleased. In my mind she pled for her life, wept, screamed, was so overwhelmed with pain that she sobbed for reprieve. In my mind, I let her die begging. 

“You are in fine form this evening, my Lady,” I said evenly, waiting for her the nod that allowed me to begin to eat and picking up my fork once it was granted. “And you might be inclined to ask after Tamlin yourself—I should expect to find him here by the end of the week.”

The magic in my skin vibrated as Amarantha’s lips curled in pleasure. “How wonderful,” she said lowly, arching her back slightly as she sat up in her seat, a sly half smile on her face. 

I heard the bowl hit the ground before I heard the scream. 

I didn’t have to look to see who it had been because I knew that scream, knew that sound of pain like I knew the back of my hand. She had a name, but Amarantha never used it, refused to let anyone call her anything other than—  
“Girl.” Amarantha’s eyes flashed as she lifted herself to her feet, the picture of poise and measure. If I hadn’t spent the last fifty years Under the Mountain, I would have never noticed the shimmer of magic that trailed her as she stalked toward the quivering girl and the overturned bowl that lay upside down next to her. 

“M-my lady,” the slave girl squeaked, stooping into a bow so low that her hair brushed the stone floor. The hem of her threadbare skirt settled to the ground as well, filthy and tattered. 

Amarantha took her time prowling toward her, aware that every eye was on her but refusing to acknowledge them. She was an actress who had no need for an audience; the show would go on regardless. “My my,” she said breathily, the train of her emerald velvet dress swishing behind her as she filled the distance between where she had been seated and where the shuddering girl stood in slow, fluid, even steps. “What have you done?” 

The once-pretty face crumpled. As she opened her mouth to answer, I noticed that amidst her collection of injuries, the relics of Amarantha’s cruelty, she had obtained a new one: near the corner of her lips, an angry, blistered burn occupied the skin between her mouth and jaw. 

I knew what I would be feeling if Amarantha’s hold on my magic had not been absolute in its grasp. A black void would sprout from behind my wings and would swallow the din of the people in the room, would vacate the light from every inch of the cavern that we now occupied. I would feel the power and cruelty of my ancestors seize her mind, hold it so she could only hear my voice, feel my power, drink in the terror that I would inspire in her head. I would lock every fiber of her body in place and fill her with pain so acute she would be nothing but a shriveling, drooling mess on the floor if I would allow her the freedom of moving. 

Instead, I was quiet. 

I was quiet as she hurt her. I was quiet against the screams because I was utterly, irrevocably helpless. And I knew that pain would soon be mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay with this! The semester is over now so I hope to do at least three more chapters by the end of the year. I know this chapter is short but I've been drafting it off and on for about a month and I just needed to post it so I can move forward. Thank you so much for your support throughout this fic--I promise I'll get my shit together and update more! This chapter has a low-key shoutout to "A Court of War and Starlight," a fantastic fic by sarahviehmann--I could never do Aracely justice, but here you go!


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